Kittie: Oracle : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

How should Kittie grow up? Should these three loud young women from London, Ontario, keep winking through the metal clich‚s that made Spit, their 2000 debut, irresistible in that raunchy-rock-chick way? Or should they go for something a little more credible? Singer Morgan Lander and her crew spend most of Oracle puzzling over this quandary. Kittie sound like they want to pursue harder extremes but can't decide whether to snicker or snarl, to play doomsayer or dominatrix. The opening track, "Oracle," sets a fearsome tone, with Lander delivering a bleating, voice-shredding yowl of indistinct syllables. Then comes "Mouthful of Poison," built on lurching wood-chopper guitar and verses that evoke the dream-haze of early Black Sabbath. Back and forth it goes: cartoonish metal guitars supporting icy, disarmingly exotic singing. Clever, melodic hooks trampled in pursuit of ordinary, one-dimensional power-chord catharsis. When Kittie learn how to make these things work together, they'll be ferocious.

TOM MOON
(RS 882 - Novemeber 22, 2001)